Roberta Bellini
Our team has continued engaging with young people in raising awareness about the water-energy nexus and its relevance for climate action with students at primary and post-primary level.
In this piece you can read about three initiatives we have been busy with. First, we describe the event we organised during STEP Ireland Engineers Week. Secondly, we illustrate the progress made in the co-design and delivery of the Climate Action Hackathon Programme in Ireland and the future steps to launch it in Ireland and Wales. Then we report on our collaboration with another Group Water Scheme, Ballinabrannagh Water Co-Op in Co. Carlow, and the primary school served by the scheme as part of our primary level programme and what we hope the next phase will bring. Finally, we reflect on the future of our work and its relevance in bridging the gap between research and education in the Ireland-Wales region and beyond.
Lab visits during STEP Ireland Engineers Week
In March we invited a group of Transition Year students from The Brunner in Dublin to celebrate Engineers Week with us by visiting our laboratories and take part in a speedy-innovation session. Aonghus Mc Nabola, Paul Coughlan and Roberta Bellini welcomed the students and briefly introduced the Dŵr Uisce project, what we do and how we work as a team in the suggestive Museum Building, one of the oldest buildings in Trinity College. Then, divided in two teams, they took turns to visit the installations to simulate the heat recovery from drain water systems and the pump-as-turbine testing rigs. Civil engineering post-doc researchers Madhu Murali and Daniele Novara engaged with the students by describing the machinery, explaining and demonstrating some of the tests they carry out to assess the functionality and effectiveness of the systems and answered all the students’ questions. After the lab visits, the students were challenged to put on their creative hats and come up with their own ideas to save water and energy. In this quick ideation session, both teams came up with great ideas: one team opted for an engineer-based solution, while the second one opted for a behavioural change approach. Asked for feedback, some of the students said their biggest take away was, in their words: "How to use water more efficiently. We learnt how expensive/how much energy is needed to heat water which we took for granted." For the Dŵr Uisce team, the event was a great opportunity to demonstrate in practice what we are doing, explaining things in easy to grasp terms and gauge the relevance of our work for a non-academic and non - technical audience in informal and relaxed settings.
Climate Action Hackathon Programme- An update
The second initiative we have been making progress on is the Dwr Uisce Climate Action Hackathon Programme. Building upon the successful pilot project run last summer with young environmental activists from ECO-UNESCO (you can read more here), we further developed the hackathon into a programme to run in schools, both in Ireland and Wales.
In Ireland, we adopted a co-design approach in which students contributed to shaping the content and format, took part in the hackathon and provided feedback on the whole experience. Having established a contact with a science teacher and her group of 15 Transition Year students in Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock, Co. Dublin (Ms Grant’s TY Science Group), the students became our focus group. Together with the group we worked on the content of the lesson that will be used by other students of the same age in Ireland to explore the water-energy nexus, the project and some of the solutions, how interdisciplinary research work and why it is useful. Having collated their suggestions and ideas, we are now working on finalizing the lesson before sending it back to the focus group for final feedback. The group also took part in the hackathon and, divided into teams, they ideated and designed two brilliant ideas to reduce the carbon footprint of water services: Aqua-Track, an app- meter-charity service to encourage people to measure their water use, use less and donate any savings to a water-charity in the global south; and RAWS- Reusable Automatic Water Scheme, a technological solution for domestic use to filter grey water to be reused in toilet flushing.
Both ideas were well thought through and presented with very enthusiastic pitches, so it was hard to decide on a winner. In the end, Aqua-track was nominated the winner although metering could pose a challenge to a wider uptake and therefore greater climate action potential.
Group 2 submission
Group 3 submission
The programme will be launched in the school year 2022-23. More details on the progamme can be found here. Teachers interested to participate can fill the expression of interest form following the links on the same page. On the Welsh side, the same co-creation approach will be adopted but we are looking for input and contributions from teachers. We are now seeking expressions of interest, so if you are a post-primary teacher in Wales and would like to participate click here.
We take this opportunity to thank Ms Grant and her Science TY group for their insightful help and great participation to the initiative.
We very much look forward to the next school year to finally see the Climate Action Hackathon programme to take off!
Water-Energy Nexus Primary School Programme
In the new year we established a collaboration with another Group Water Scheme, Ballinabranna Water Co-Op in Co. Carlow, to adapt our primary school webinar to be delivered in person to the primary school served by the scheme as part of our primary level programme.
In late April, Roberta visited Ballinabranna N.S with Gail Fitzgerald, manager of the scheme. Together they took 5th and 6th class pupils through a journey from ground to tap to discover where their tap water comes from, how energy is needed to supply and use water and what they can all do to save water and energy, to help the environment. The workshops went very well and kids seemed to really enjoy seeing photos of places in their locality. Gail received very positive feedback from kids and families when meeting them in the community- a sign of the ripple effects interactive and fun activities can have!
We are now looking into ways to make the webinars for the two schemes we have worked with (read here about BGWS) accessible by the schools in their supply areas also in the future; by collaborating with the National Federation of Group Water Schemes, the schemes already involved and any potential other scheme we hope to find an optimal solution.
In addition, we are finalising the content and format of a webinar aimed at any primary school. More details coming up soon!
Reflection and future steps
2022 is the European Year of Youth and we are proud of our efforts in bridging the gap between research and education with different initiatives, designed for and with young people. We hope that by demonstrating solution-driven approaches to problems and by engaging in ideation and innovation processes aimed at climate action, young people will feel empowered to act for change. We have met many inspiring young students with a very positive ‘can-do’ attitude, seeing opportunities rather than barriers or challenges and who felt they can be agents of change. It has been very uplifting.
Our outreach commitments have brought us to discuss our experience in a high-level panel discussion at EU Education for Climate Policy Practice Forum on May 5, 2022, together with the EU Commissioner Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Mariya Gabriel and Stefania Giannini Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO. The recording of the event is available here.
Our ambition is to consolidate our work in citizen and youth engagement by creating a legacy of outreach activities and a document with lessons learnt and and ‘How to’ guide for other researchers looking at ways to work with a non-academic audience.